Welcome to the latest BriefingsDirect SOA Insights Edition Vol. 6, a weekly discussion and dissection of Services Oriented Architecture (SOA)-related news and events, with a panel of independent IT industry analysts. Wrapping up the year, our crew tackles 2006 with a SOA review. The boys also take a look forward to 2007 with a series of SOA predictions. Join Steve Garone, Joe McKendrick, Jon Collins and Tony Baer for our discussion, hosted and moderated by Dana Gardner. Top predictions favor more software infrastructure consolidation amid corporate mergers, a move to increased modeling in SOA, and roughly a 25% increase in SOA-related deployments in the New Year. Join us as we delve into these complex and fascinating subjects. Feel free to read a full transcript of the discussion at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2006/12/transcript-of-briefingsdirect-soa_19.html.

Broadly dispersed datacenters are a huge and growing expense to enterprises -- yet the demands for more applications delivered fast and reliably is mounting. Can an enterprise have it both ways: Fewer datacenters and better performance? Can they cut ongoing costs in doing so, and protect their resources from disasters? Two executives from Hewlett-Packard's Consulting and Integration Group unequivocally say, "Yes!" Join podcast host and moderator Dana Gardner in a discussion on the methods and best practices around IT Consolidation with Ewald Comhaire, director of the global practice for Infrastructure Services, as well as Peg Ofstead, worldwide solution lead for HP IT Shared Services and IT Consolidation Services. Read a full transcript of the discussion at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2006/12/transcript-of-briefingsdirect-podcast_13.html. Sponsor: Hewlett-Packard.

The demands on the Internet have never been higher, with massive files of high-definition video, online distribution of most software products, and the increasing uploading of "user-generated content" filling up the pipes. Yet the challenge to Internet delivery is not just in the packets' performance. The winning formula for online businesses also demands a business platform, from generating metrics to managing advertising to fulfilling subscriptions -- a unified platform approach to the business of Internet media delivery is emerging. To help better understand the challenges and opportunities of the newest waves in media, join host and moderator Dana Gardner in a podcast discussion with Mike Afergan, CTO of Akamai Technologies. Feel free to peruse a full transcript of the discussion at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2006/12/transcript-of-briefingsdirect-podcast_12.html. Podcast sponsor: Akamai Technologies.

Welcome to the latest BriefingsDirect SOA Insights Edition, a weekly discussion and dissection of Services Oriented Architecture (SOA)-related news and events, with a panel of independent IT industry analysts, journalists and guests. With us to discuss SOA and Microsoft, SOA and Web 2.0 and SOA as a business value are a distinguished and interesting panel: Steve Garone, Joe McKendrick, Mary Jo Foley, and Jeff Pendleton. Our discussion this week centers on two topics, both, of course, SOA-related. The first is Microsoft, which has been coming out with more lingo, or marketing, around SOA -- if not in the actual technology approach, at least in terms of the business values and the rationale for embarking on SOA. The second issue is trying to figure out the best way of conceptualizing SOA’s business value, and to then be able to take it out to the market. Join us as we delve into these complex and fascinating subjects. Feel free to read a full transcript of the discussion at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2006/12/transcript-of-briefingsdirect-soa.html.

Open source and SOA are increasingly joined at the hip. These twins are developing in tandem, not sequentially, which is giving CIOs and architects a variety of choices for picking and choosing the projects and products that make up their SOAs. To better understand the history and progression of SOA and open source, two open source experts from IONA Technologies join moderator Dana Gardner for a deep-dive discussion into the SOA open source landscape, as well as to explain the objectives and accomplishments of IONA's Dec. 4 release of the Celtix Enterprise initiatives. Have a listen to the podcast or read the transcript at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2006/12/transcript-of-briefingsdirect-podcast.html. Podcast sponsor: IONA Technologies, Inc.